


ИO FUTUЯE

by malakai



Category: Cyberpunk 2077 (Video Game)
Genre: Age Difference, Alcohol Abuse, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Fluff, Enemies to Lovers, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Happy Ending, Plot What Plot, Porn Without Plot, Reader Insert, a different ending but a happy one, but like a sudden oh shit we doing this? burn, but with hard edges, not a slow burn, slightly though, smut hut
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-26
Updated: 2021-01-29
Packaged: 2021-03-12 08:47:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29007783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/malakai/pseuds/malakai
Summary: You're a Corpo, and you've got one job: fly the AV.It's a simple job and a lucrative one. You've made it this far without lopping heads off - not directly, at least. You fly the damn thing and ask no questions, and that's how you like it—a smooth sailing, well-paying, simple job.Until you meet Goro Takemura, and it all goes to shit.
Relationships: Goro Takemura/Original Female Character(s), Goro Takemura/Reader, Goro Takemura/You
Comments: 3
Kudos: 39





	1. Chaos

Being one of the many pilots within Night City had its ups and downs, figuratively and literally. That is not to say you didn't enjoy it; to some extent, you did. Perhaps if you gave it some thought, you'd find that you had lost pleasure in flying many years ago. The initial hum as the engines came online, the gentle vibrations that soothed you then now numbed you. It was like any other job—a cockpit instead of a cubicle. Yet, it was the same nonsensical inner working growing like grime found throughout Night city, full of paperwork and protocol, haves and have-nots. In the mornings, bitter black coffee, cold steel draped in dew, obscured under an early hour fog. Instrument lights that long lost their luster and now inspire a tension headache behind your eyes. 

It's the same thing every day—the exact route and pattern. Even voices from the tower are familiar. You know their names, their inflections, and they know yours. Things rarely differ, and even if this monotony no longer suits you, you won't change. Every day, you find yourself 5,000 feet above the ground, dressed in a sleek black flight suit designed for you and you alone, cybernetics wired into your reflexes for critical movements and decision making. Your Kiroshi optics are the best the market can provide, integrating the very display itself into your vision - tension headache not included but certainly on the house - allowing you to fly this beast with thoughts alone. 

Yet, it still feels like it's not enough, that there are more rungs to climb in this corporate gallows.

No, you catch yourself—it's _too_ much, but would you have it any other way?

* * *

It's another day you wake before the blushes of dawn. 

Night City does not rest like you, and you rise to the same sounds that had lured you to sleep - sirens, thumping music, and incoherent shouting.

What you like most about the city is its chaos. There's a pattern to it, no matter the sector or district. No matter what the screamsheets or the media may say: Night City is not polished nor safe. It is a cesspool of corruption with a price tag from the pinnacle to the pit. Right now, there are squatters outside of your apartment. They loiter on the bottom floor, along with the trash and other refuse, checking cars for unlocked doors and valuables therein. The only area within Night City deprived of such reminders is North Oak, but you do not live in North Oak, nor would your salary ever land you there. But it's nice to see that at any moment, _you_ could be down there, groveling and filthy. Another dot lost to the pattern.

You're a Corpo, raised by Corpo parents, and ushered into a Corpo lifestyle that was planned far ahead of your Corpo birth. Night City owns you. It's the beat in your heart and the rush of your blood. You know nothing else, but you _do_ know Night City and its proverbial chaos, for its rhythm flows through your veins. In short, you try not to take anything for granted. 

You shuffle sleepily across the glossy black floors, the marble cold against your bare feet, and start the coffee pot. You stand there for a moment, letting your silk robe slid off one shoulder as your drift between wakefulness and a weary daze. Aside from fatigue, you are healthy. Your biometric read-out is telling you this from your peripheral. Still, you search within yourself to call in sick even if you don't have the leave to do so. 

Every day is getting more challenging than the last to find meaning in this work. You can't even call it honest, and you can't even say you're readily involved. In truth, you're just a cog in the machine, turning a blind eye when things get ugly and drowning in the sounds of spooling engines and digital computer alarms.

The street lights still illuminate your path when you reach the City Center, gloom tracing the towers silhouetted around you. At the front door, a security guard checks your badge with barely a glance. He's seen these tired eyes before, and the long hair pulled back into a neat bun, the smart flight suit and neon lights reflected along the cybernetics adorning your cheeks and throat.

The elevator greets you with the same pleasant hum that does little to shake the lingers of sleep. You lean against the wall, drifting in and out until the elevator's soft chime announces its arrival.

The area's low lighting and dark interior have always soothed you. It's also quiet, accompanied by the soft electrical hum running through the nearby servers. Soundproof glass separates each chamber, backed by other methods of noise absorption, but the hour is still so dreadfully early; it's just you and the night shift supervisor who is already well on his way out of the door. 

You push off and step into the Arasaka's operations department. On the right side is an office for maintenance meetings, the middle for current and future mission planning, and the left is a break room. You know you should check today's missions, but you can't be bothered. It would help if you had another cup of coffee. 

After your second cup, you perk up, but only slightly. The only thing that could stimulate you at this point would be cancellations, and there are _never_ cancellations. Not once in the ten years you've worked here. 

You finish your coffee in a hasty gulp and head for the CUOPs room, where lousy news likely awaits you. The room's brightest device is the display monitor that provides pending flights, active and inactive missions, cancellations, and any cautions or advisories within the area. It's an impressive feature you've only seen in other moguls like Militech or Night Corp, a three-dimensional map of Night City from the narrowest of the alleys to the Badlands' rolling hills. There is no nook or cranny unknown to you. 

You're not surprised to find one flight on the schedule, nor are you shocked to see you're the assigned pilot. It's a routine movement: take the subject from A to B. A fifteen-minute drive with twenty eddies cost at the most has now elevated into a 5 minute, 20k eddy sortie.

And for what?

You try not to express your dismay at this discovery. _Do I hate my job?_ you wonder, but only so far. You don't wish to travel down this mental spiral _this_ early on a Tuesday morning. 

With a heavy sigh, you head for the locker room to gather your gear, glance at the weather, and check for any hazards or notices that might concern you. 

* * *

Lizzie's fuckin' _bar._

You try not to sound annoyed when speaking to other traffic when the cluster of buildings close in. The red-lighted spires are ominous in the morning gloom as you bank left into a slow descent. You know this area well; there's nowhere to land, but passengers never think about that. They want what they want as soon as the thought is available to them, and you can feel the tension behind your eyes already. You wonder just who the fuck you're flying and why are they coming _here?_ It shouldn't concern you, but it does. You almost forget the pattern.

Still, you alert your single passenger via the AI that it's illegal to descend upon civilian areas without a state of emergency. They're alone, no envoy or escort. There is no designation assigned to this flight suggesting it's a distinguished visitor or VIP mission, so the reply surprises you. 

"Find a spot close to the bar. As close as you can. Fuck procedures," a husky, feminine voice states.

The retort you receive has you gripping the flight controls until your leather gloves groan. There are powerlines, street lamps, fences, and other buildings crowding all around—and fuck all to land on. 

In a way, you hope for a crash. The cockpit's design ensures higher survivability than the remaining fuselage. The descent would be sudden and startling for unsuspecting passengers, but _you_ would survive unharmed—so would the prick in the back but not without a fucked spine and severe bruising. Nothing Trauma Team can't take care of it.

With that, you drop the collective, sinking the AV like a rock and lifting against your seat harnesses. The roof of Lizzie's bar rises to greet you in hard concrete slabs, dangerous powerlines, and rigid fencing. Colors blur, the AV's typical vibrations are resonating through your bones as you drop from the sky.

At the last second, you make your adjustments, applying the cyclical to prevent the aircraft from careening out of control, pulling up on the collective to slow and soften your abrupt landing.

You can hear the stream of cursing in the rear cabin over the instrument alarms screaming to correct your error. At least you're awake now, indicative of the exciting thrum beneath your breast. 

The AV comes to a delicate hover, touching down on the roof with the finest jostle. Once settled, you flip the doors to the fuselage open and silence all the alarms - then wait. Only seconds pass before someone pounds on your cockpit window with a solid fist. You flick up your visor and look over.

It's your passenger, you think, seething with half a shorn head and the rest an inky mess, likely from your pettiness. Champagne has doused her dark blazer and stained her trousers, too. 

You smile; she spits on the canopy window and offers you an offensive yet manicured gesture before turning away. 

It's not your job to challenge, you remind yourself, reaching for the harness buckle at your midsection. It would involve paperwork and a echelon of protocols belonging to a hierarchy of Shit You Would Rather Not. 


	2. Unretrofied

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> takes place during Playing For Time mission.

Once again, you find yourself on the brink of sleep and the shallow depths of restlessness. It's an awful affair that has you tossing for several minutes, thoughts buzzing about your head for several more until you place a sleep tablet beneath your tongue and wait for the world to dissolve away with flavors of strawberry and lemon.

Stretched across your bed, tangled in sheets and crowded by far too many pillows one person needs, you feel the last tethers release, sinking you into a dark, dreamless state only to shocked awake, _violently._

You fall out of bed, landing on your hands and knees jarringly, gasping as the pain overrides your artificial inhibitors. 

A message flashes across your optics sent directly from Arasaka Tower in a blind, red glare you can barely read or understand amidst your sudden panic.

They are under attack, it reports.

_Report to HQs immediately._

* * *

On minutes of sleep, you find yourself back in the cockpit, having been off duty for a solid six hours at best, and the only difference now is tonight you are piloting an armored AV, and you have a co-pilot. That and there are mounted turrets jutting out of the fuselage's side, manned by Corpo soldiers dressed in full battle-rattle. 

The tension in the air has you on edge, though you try you best to remain calm. It doesn't help that the orders were fragmented and censored, even for you. 

The startup is quick. Both engines are online, temperatures, pressures, and all needles sit in the green. You're one of the first aircraft to launch from the Arasaka Headquarters, banking aggressively northbound for Konpeki Plaza as the skies open up and a heavy rain descends. You're not sure what you're looking for, but you grateful for your optics night vision setting. In hues of white and green, you take in the structure, ears straining for the next transmission to come through the comms; each static crackle causes you to flinch. Several other assault AVs trail behind but will eventually flank yours. One climbs, others sink. All of their weapons trained on the rows and rows of black windows and the parking lot below.

A Trauma Team craft flies by, wrapping around the rear of the building. You want to ask the other pilot what's going on, but he appears just as clueless. It's a code red, but for who?

A drone is sent out, skirting the same path that Trauma Team took, and disappears behind the building. 

You wait, keeping the AV steady and clear of the other aircraft while spotlights wash over the plaza.

The rain continues, falling in sheets and reducing your area's visibility, but you can still make out security forces creating a perimeter below. 

"This is shit," you mutter to yourself. "I can't fucking see."

"Me either," your second grunts. 

You twist in your seat to eye the assault team mounted by the rear doors. Several are peering over the windows, spying down below briefly to avoid getting wet.

Inside the cockpit, the rest of the world is on mute. You can't hear the wind clawing at you or the soldiers' footfalls as they take up 360-degree security. You can't even hear the rain pelting you over the dull drone of the engines. 

But you do hear a blast of gunfire shatter your artificial silence. 

The drone careens into your line of sight, peppering the building in a haphazard spray of bullets before diving after an unseen target.

You can no longer see it but can still hear its racket.

Chatter erupts from the comms, crowding your thoughts as you try to expedite your decision. Your cyberware kicks in, filtering the feedthrough by keywords: spread out, two targets, descend, surround, and secure the area. 

And then the last phrase catches you by surprise the most:

_The Emperor is dead._

* * *

Headquarters offers little to no respite. Both the HQ Tower, Konpeki Plaza, and the remaining Waterfront are on lockdown; all personnel have switched to 24-hour standby. Given that a launch could come at any moment means rest is hard to obtain. It's only eleven p.m., the night is still young and ripe of fuckery you wish to avoid. 

In short, being a pilot has lost all its charm. Since the assassination, you haven't seen your bed and now share the benches in the locker room with equally exhausted and stretched thin pilots for resting. Your numbers are dwindling, whether from fall out or other means, you don't wish to consider. You understand, though - how _nice_ this lifestyle is, that of a Corpo, and how _awful_ it can be, too _._ You are expendable to some degree, but it's far from a timely replacement. There were dozens of you ten years ago. There's only eight this morning, seven now after a quick count. 

You rise from the hard bench and stretch, cracking your back and neck before heading for the break room. You need coffee, so much coffee you fear it'll replace your blood with the amount you're ingesting. 

Sleep is a myth at this point. You've lost all interest in trying and keeping up with the demands of moving prominent figureheads to and fro, ignoring the whispers and festering rumors to keep your head attached to your shoulders. Even this thought alone enters a risky territory.

Arasaka is always listening.

* * *

It's half passed three in the morning. You're still standing in the break room, minding your _Ps_ and _Qs_ as you are apt to do, and hope to remain here until your body gives out or they call off the search, which will never happen. That would be considered a _cancellation,_ and those are a myth. You think about severing or even rebooting your personal link if only to catch some sleep during the incapacitated repair phase. It's so difficult to turn off your mind when you're riddled with anxiety. You're desperate at this point.

A voice drifts into your sector, foreign to your ears, but you've seen so many people in such a short amount of time, you've lost sense of curiosity and just hope to blend into the background, to be left alone. 

"I think I know where they are heading," continued the voice, volume and clarity increasing. The auto door to the department hisses open and the sharp steps crossing the glossy tile migrate towards operations. You should be in there, monitoring the phones, the radios, and, instead, huddle close to your fifth cup of coffee. Whoever is speaking now stands at the mouth of the locker room, as if it were a chicken coop, and he's come to collect some eggs. The footsteps lead away, moving from one end of the room to the other... towards the break room.

You press the warm cup to your cheek, attempting to hide behind it pathetically, and hear, " _Excuse me, ma'am."_

You give yourself a moment, however brief, to prepare yourself for this awful conversation and not look so annoyed. But as you try to sit your cup down, your gaze rises, the cup stuttering against the surface as your nervous systems shocks itself with adrenaline.

Goro Takemura stands before you, and for a moment, you can only offer a blank stare before protocol snaps into focus.

You bow your head, gritting your teeth as you do so. For a Corporate who hates her job, you hate customs and courtesies ever more but Saburo Arasaka's bodyguard stands before you and you've heard enough to know your place in this tower regarding Goro fucking Takemura.

"I require a pilot," he states, taking in your Arasaka-issued flight uniform with implication. 

You feel sick and irritated with yourself but nod. You are, as it is, the on-duty officer and, therefore, the only pilot available for the next twelve hours. 

"It doesn't work like that," you respond as bitter as the coffee you set aside. "You can't just walk up here and _order_ a flight. You have to request it from the AMR cell. It routes through operations and maintenance. They find you a slot, assign a pilot, _then_ you get your flight."

You stamp down the rancor dripping from your voice. If _you_ have to abide to protocol, _so should everyone else._

Saburo Arasaka's bodyguard steps forward, entering in your very large and very private bubble, sliding his hands into his pockets and forcing you to lock eyes with his. If he weren't trying to intimidate you, perhaps you would have paused in admiration. Instead, you scowl into his dark gaze ringed in prismatic white irises. It's a stunning sight, but right now, you might hate this man.

Then his eyes sharpen to an electric blue, your optics pulling up a transactional request heralding an exorbitant amount of eddies that send your stomach into cartwheels. You flinch not only at the amount but the audacity, but he cuts you off before you can screw up your face and challenge him. 

"There are more pressing matters than protocol," he mutters. "I have been sent by Saburo himself to tend to these affairs solely. I will take care of whatever repercussions befall you should they occur at all."

The way he says it suggests there are dealings beyond you, and you intend to keep it that way. You're tired and at your wit's end and standing before you is a prominent individual you've wanted to avoid for some time. Given the lapse between your last encounter with chaos' pattern, you're quite overdue.

You swallow thickly, square your shoulders and shoulder past him to gather your gear as aggressively as you can without waking the slumbering pilots tucked under benches and obscured as whuffling humps beneath thick blankets and lowlighting.

With your helmet tucked under your arm, you lead _Goro fucking Takemura_ to the hangar bay after a quick word with maintenance. There's several AV's down for remedial functions check. As the ever-over-worked pilot, you've been known to do a fair amount of maintenance test flights. You made sure to keep your newly acquired passenger out of view as you made these dealings. Not that they would challenge him, but they certainly would challenge you.

Pressing the black oval button that releases the auto-doors and grants access to the cabin, you turn away and climb into the cockpit and start your checklist. The data runs off your neural chip - another perk (if you can even consider it that) given to you by Arasaka. It's handy and second nature at this point. You know the sequence word for word, and before long, you've brought the AV to a hover and taxi out of the hangar bay and drop into the Night City skies.

"Take me to the outskirts, " Takemura says over the odd hum of the engines. You have several limitations in this current heap, including airspeed and engine performance, meaning you can't exceed 200 knots or do a barrel roll, not like you want to do either.

Okay, maybe a little.

_No._

You stop yourself, knowing you can't fuck Takemura like you fucked with the last Corpo who graced you with their presence. 

You school your features, put your pettiness aside, and keep the AV at a steady 150 knots as you head straight out of Night City and into the foul-smelling smog that sits perpetually above Municipal Landfill.


	3. Gods and Devils

The fuselage windows are open, and through internal surveillance, you can see Takemura check his phone several times before glancing out of the window. The early hour gloom that perpetually haunts you provides a haze that sits thick and wet over the landfill. 

"Stay low, stay quiet," he tells you. "I'm looking for someone."

You listen, pulling the engines back into a cool 70% and conduct wide, lazy circles overhead. After several minutes of low reconnaissance, Takemura finally says, "Land here, wherever it suits you."

You do so, finding a furrow carved through the trash with enough space for your AV without contracting anything maintenance would side-eye you for, then you're told to wait as Takemura promptly exits the aircraft.

You spend the time picking at your nails, listening to the radio chatter, and checking your email. The time reads 4 am, another dreadful hour for you to ruminate - and you do. Ruminating is your second job, which is mainly thinking about how much you hate your first job and how nice it would be to fuckin' sleep for once.

For the second time in the last hour, you stop yourself. Lately, you've been toeing the line, and it comes as a surprise no one has reached out and questioned your loyalty - which is _unwavering, steadfast, and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera._

Either through boredom or your inability to sit still, you flick up your visor and gaze into the hazy fetor that surrounds you. You can't see or hear where Takemura has waltzed off to, and in theory, he isn't your boss. He isn't even apart of the aviation department. He's part of some tight-ass security sector; therefore, he can't order you around.

You unbuckle, remove your helmet as the auto-door to the cockpit hisses open, and out into the ripe morning air, you go. 

You suppress a gag as your booted feet sink into the muck beneath you with a repulsive squelch. The wind kicks up, heralding a stench that causes the fine hairs on your neck to stand up. You bring a sleeve over your nose and traipse forward, following the footprints Takemura left within the sludge. As soon as you round a perilous mound, a voice drifts succinctly over the piles of refuse.

"Now, listen, dawg. I've done _exactly_ what you asked," a thick man heaves breathlessly, "So le'ss you and me figure this—" 

The back of his head blows out, the startling gunshot ringing your ears and sending you down into a hunker out of reflex but not for long. 

You flew the two of them out here, which meant Takemura had every intention bringing aboard whoever the dead man plucked from the garbage, and for that, you have a say.

"What the fuck are you doing?" you stumble out of your hiding spot and through the muck.

Takemura rounds on you with his pistol aimed at your chest, then quickly lowers the weapon, scowling at you as he's so wont to do. "I told you to wait in the AV."

You glance at the supine thug, warm blood pooling into the muck and grime as he stares into the last thing he'll ever see - smog and heaps of trash. For once, you're at a loss of words, and you try to reason with what your eyes and ears are relaying. Takemura takes this moment to make a phone call, speaking in hushed, quick tones that evade even your keen hearing. Not that you're listening, you're too busy staring between the dead thug and the dying woman.

The body pulled from the garbage lets out a wet wheeze, startling you. 

" _Help me,"_ she says. Her wandering eyes have difficultly landing on you, but the result it has on your bearing is all the same. She's looking _at you, asking_ you _for help._

Swallowing thickly, you step forward, another reaction you have no name more, and get a better look at her: the shorn hair, dark lips, and dark eyes. You've seen her before. She reaches for you as your gazes lock, and you feel sick with the clarity that yes, you've met her before.

"Quiet." Takemura snarls at her, then knocks her unconscious. 

* * *

You don't help carry the body to the AV, and Takemura doesn't ask, tossing the woman over his shoulder as if she's no more than the trash that surrounds you and dumps her into the rear cabin.

Your hands are shaking when you strap yourself in and slip on your helmet. When you open up your checklist, it takes you several tries to absorb what you're reading and follow the instructions, despite being so well versed in its contents.

"Get your shit together," you snarl to yourself before slapping several switches, turning the magnetos, and firing up the engines. 

You can feel it; the first wave of throbbing makes itself a home behind your eyes. You scan the gauges, barely seeing the temperatures and pressures on the steady rise, utterly fretted.

As soon as she's ready, you plant your feet on the pedals, grip the controls, and pull the AV up into a hover. 

There's a sharp crunch as something penetrates through its side paneling, burrowing through layers of metal and carbon. At first, you fear you must have collided with something and twist around in time to see the intrusion anchor itself with angled prongs through one of the windows.

"Fly!" Takemura shouts, but you're already yanking up on the collective and shoving the cyclic forward. The window blows out, detaching the harpoon and its cable. You're free only to enter hostile airspace almost immediately as drones swarm your sides. The mounds of trash roll beneath you as you climb and climb, keeping the cyclic pinned forward and the collective gripped tightly. 

The AV starts to shake as you near 180 knots. At 190, it's rattling catastrophically to the point it's shuddering the control and, therefore you. You drawback only to push forward again when several drones whizz past to intercept you. _Arasaka_ is painted along their black bodies. 

Something like lead drops inside you, and the blood pumping through your dilated veins feels like ice. The quiet calm you've always maintained cracks, compromising that smooth mould you've honed in these years. Panic is on the rise. 

You slam the right pedal, banking hard, and dive below the drones, seconds before they open fire. The volley erupts, never-ending, chewing up the concrete and dirt behind you as you barrel towards—

Where are you going? Back to HQs? You can't. 

The window to your left shatters, spraying shards of plex into your lap—a tiny light in gold flashes frantically above your fuel: _bingo_. Beneath the cowl, the engines are shuddering apart as you sit at 200 knots with no intention of slowing down and the only thing keeping you alive is your unpredictable banking.

"Takemura!" you scream over the wind tearing at you. "We have to land before—"

The AV dips as something lands upon it. You pull up, glancing over your shoulder in time to see the back right of the auto door as it's torn from its fucking hinges. A droid pokes its head in.

Takemura open fires, but the robotic terror holds steady, taking each shot in only sparks and flinches.

Perhaps if you had made a deal with the devil, you should have contacted the gods first; nonetheless, you pray to whatever bastard's listening and throw the AV into a barrel roll. 

When Takemura tells you the inertia flung the bastard off and into a nearby drone, your relief is short-lived. The engines are screaming; the same alarm wails BINGO BINGO BINGO, which only heightens your hysteria. You stop the roll and rise even though it's going to cost you fuel. Landing now is certain death with the drone squad not far behind, but you need to try at least to lose them. Crashing is inevitable.

Eyeing the fuel gauge and the variety of other shit flung into the fan, you tell Takemura to take his charge and climb up to the front. He doesn't question you, and you're grateful because there's no time to explain that the cockpit is designed to endure and the remaining fuselage is not. 

He appears, lugging the slacked woman into the middle space between seats.

"Pull her into your lap, and harness her in. Keep her close."

You reach up and kill an engine, a measure you should have done long ago, but here you are, and there's the ground you'll be seeing soon.

It's almost intimate how he gathers her into his arms and pulls her into his lap, so much, you have to look away. You're not sure what's so important about her, and at this point, it seems as if you're about to find out—if everyone survives. And if you do, you intend to slot it within the remaining echelon of Shit You Would Rather Not and get as far from _Goro fuckin Takemura_ as you can.

You tear off your helmet and pass it to him, which he takes and shoves it on his unconscious human-baggage. You're not entirely sure how well this is going to work. It'll either be a success— _or suddenly no longer your problem._

Then the engine dies, and the silence is instant.

The only thing you hear is your panicked gasp as the nose pitches downward and the fast-approaching horizon swallows your view. 

You don't know why, but you glance at Takemura.

He is the last thing you see.


End file.
